Holiday Writing Life: 5 Ways to Mine the Opportunities All Around You

This can be a tough time of the year. So many holidays, so much to do, and maybe just maybe you’d like to squeeze in time to write. One thing that can help is to spot the opportunities all around you.

Five minutes. You can do amazing things in only five minutes a day. Work on your novel for five minutes daily throughout the holidays. I did that this fall when I was completing a nonfiction job. The 4000 words I wrote in six week were not beautiful but they were 4000 more than I had before. Use your five minutes to increase your word count or do the pre-writing needed for a new project. Or you can compile a number of shorter pieces to finalize later on.

Activities. The holidays are full of activities and so are many magazines and newsletters. Do you have a recipe that was passed down from your grandmother? A decorating project you and your daughters do every Christmas? Or a family game that you play with your nieces and nephews? Maybe you’ve come up with a way to save money on buying gifts. You may not have time to market it right now but draft it while it is fresh in your mind.

Those sweet moments. Like Crystal Otto pointed out in her recent post, we are in the season of Advent. When you have one of those sweet, inspirational moments, write it down. You may very well have a devotional or a short essay on your hands. One of my writing buddies is a champion at turning these moments into prayers. Another uses them to craft poetry. Use what touches you to draft something poignant to share. 

Research. I am part of a family of readers ranging in age from 2 months to 80 years. The holidays are a great opportunity for me to do market research. What books do parents want for their kids? What books does my teen niece want to find under the tree? I can also check out my mother-in-law’s reader to see what she has recently downloaded from the library.

Drama Queens, Smoking Ovens and Other Little Disasters. Those moments that you’d just rather forget? The ones we here in Missouri call “interesting,” because our Moms would be super mad if we said what we really thought? They make great essays. Angela Mackintosh taught me that after I described one family encounter. Okay, first she apologized for laughing herself silly, but she was right. Griswold family moments form the basis for many essays.

Whether your holidays are perfect or chaotic, don’t berate yourself for not getting more writing done. Instead find five minutes to jot down whatever has moved you. Before toasting Auld Lang Syne, you’ll have either a number of short pieces ready to take to final or a considerable amount of progress on your longer project.

--SueBE

To find out more about Sue Bradford Edwards' writing, visit her blog, One Writer's Journey.  Sue is also the instructor for Writing Nonfiction for Children and Young Adults. The next session begins January 8th, 2017.

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5 comments being productive during the holidays, five minutes a day, Inspiration, opportunities, writing, writing life

How to Survive the Holidays When You're a Writer

Getting to this point each year . . . the struggle is real. 

I’m going to throw this out there and hope that some of you relate. The holidays are always a tough time of year for me. Most of my family lives halfway across the country and I’m the product of a broken home and an only child, so the get-togethers often revolve around my husband his extended family. I’m pretty sure I have Seasonal Affective Disorder and suffer during the colder months when there’s not enough sunlight to go around. I tend to want to hibernate like a bear in the winter and it can take a lot for me to come out of my cave. Throw all the holiday parties, gifts, and other obligations to try and keep things festive and it can get downright stressful, especially if you’re a writer or editor and your income stream depends on you not sinking into a funk! (Don’t get me wrong—I do love the holidays, what I don’t love is all the added pressure from the world to make everything so dang perfect in the process.)

Here are a few ideas for how to survive the holidays when you’re a writer:

1. Be prepared for your normal deadlines to get pushed up. It’s not secret that the publishing world pretty much shuts down between the week of Dec. 20 and the New Year. If you’ve been assigned a story that’s due during the month of December or the beginning of January, plan to interview sources early before they become unavailable. If you have regular deadlines each month, check with your editors and make sure nothing has been moved up. One of my deadlines got moved from the 10th of the month to the 5th, so I’ll be doing a bit of scrambling myself next week.
2. Make a list of gifts you still need to buy and make a strategy for tackling them. For me, we usually like to purchase some gifts and gift cards for our children’s teachers, and the fact that my kids get out of school by the 16th always throws me for a loop. This morning I sat down and mapped out a plan of who was going to get what so I can purchase and deliver the gifts before the winter break.
3. Put all social events on your calendar. Now. I'm really bad about this (are you sensing my lack of organization yet?) and need to do this immediately after completing this blog post. Between choir practice, my daughter’s orchestra practice and concerts, a Cub Scout campout and Christmas party, my husband’s work party, etc., my head is swimming. This will also help you keep track of that shopping list where you may need to purchase a Dirty Santa gift or whip up a dish for a potluck.
4. Pencil a date to meet a friend for coffee or dinner. Yes, we’re all busy. Terribly busy. But the holidays are a tough time for many, and sometimes it’s good to vent over a Peppermint Mocha or join forces and do a little shopping together. You’ll realize everyone is in the same boat and we’re all just trying to survive.
5. Work on a fun project during the break. Once you’re deadlines are met, do something fun for you and work on that short story you’ve been itching to get back to or print out a few pages of your work-in-progress for friends or family members to read. It will be a good way to be productive during some well-deserved time off.

Because, after all, the snail’s pace of January will be here soon enough.

Do you have any tips for surviving the holidays?

Renee Roberson is an award-winning writer and editor whose favorite gift to hand out during the holidays is Cookies in a Jar. 

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4 comments being productive during the holidays, holiday survival tips for writers, Renee Roberson, writing advice